


Growing Up Is Hard (But Someone Had To Do It)

by zeri



Category: Bleach
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-30
Updated: 2014-10-30
Packaged: 2018-02-23 05:02:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2535140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeri/pseuds/zeri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Zaraki Kenpachi died, no one felt like fighting.</p><p>(Unlikely to be continued.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

After Zaraki Kenpachi died, no one felt like fighting. Such feelings may have been considered minor in any other division, but for the Eleventh, it was the highest form of grief. Insults were tossed half-heartedly at best, and not a single one of them was assigned a mission that could possibly involve an encounter with a Hollow. It would have ended in their own deaths.

Ikkaku was the first to realize that no one had seen their vice-captain, now acting-captain, in over a week. She had been crying over Kenpachi's body for hours, not letting anyone near her until she finally fell asleep sobbing. The last thing that he remembered concerning her was that Yumichika had carried her back to her room.

 

He knocked on her door quietly, hoping not to get a slash across the legs by way of response. "Vice-Captain?" he called out. He knocked a bit harder. "Hey, kiddo, you in there?" He knocked hard enough to splinter the wood and winced, then sighed. "I'm comin' in," he called out. He opened the door.

 

If anyone had been able to see his face, they might have been concerned about how pale he had suddenly become.

 

Ikkaku raced down the corridor and grabbed the first punk-ass kid he saw. "Get Captain Unohana!" he barked. " _Now_!"

 

-

 

"The bed was fucking _covered_ in blood," Ikkaku repeated.

 

Yumichika bit at his thumbnail, an indication of how severely worried he was. "I'm sure Captain Unohana would have informed us by now if she was..." He trailed off, then shook his head.

 

"Perhaps she is performing a medical operation. Or-" He was cut off as the door to Yachiru's room opened. Unohana stepped out and shook her head as soon as they tried to speak, then stepped to the side.

 

From the room walked a young woman with pink hair that was knotted and matted with blood and tired brown eyes. She was wrapped in Unohana's coat, the one that marked Unohana as the captain of the Fourth Division. "Heya Baldy, Eyebrows," she yawned.

 

"Vice-Captain Kusajishi is unharmed," Unohana explained quietly, with the vague smile that she usually wore. "Although I do think that she could use a thorough bath."

 

"But, all the blood-!" Ikkaku protested.

 

"I got that thing," the young woman explained, making a nondescript hand gesture. "Y'know, like when a guy don't wanna have sex with a girl. But I got lots of it."

 

"Ugliness?" Yumachika asked skeptically as Ikkaku suggested, "Bein' gay?"

 

"Her period," Unohana said firmly, forestalling any more attempts. "She grew quite quickly in a short amount of time. I believe it was from shock."

 

"Slept through it all, too," Yachiru said, her voice brightening slightly. "Unohana says I'm fifteen now!"

 

"Approximately, yes."

 

Now that Ikkaku had been assured that his vice-captain was physically healthy, he looked a bit disgusted. "You got _pussy_ blood in your _hair_ ," he said, appalled. "That's fucking gross." Yachiru ran a hand over her hair and swiped out at Ikkaku in response. He yelped and started dancing around, trying to get the article of clothing off without touching the blood while Yachiru laughed. "Baldy can't take a little blood!" she squealed, obviously delighted.

 

"I'll send over some pills later," Unohana said patiently. "They'll keep you from getting your period unless you want it."

 

"Why would I wanna be all bleedy?" she asked, her laughter having dimmed down to giggles.

 

"In case you want to have a child," Yumichika explained as he dodged the coat that Ikkaku had finally managed to tear off.

 

Yachiru gave him a weird look. "Ken-chan wasn't all bleedy when he found me."

 

Unohana sighed deeply. There was a reason why she left the frequent treatment of the Eleventh Division to her underlings. "I'll be going, then. I'm sure you have a lot to do, Acting-Captain."

 

Yachiru waited until the older woman was gone, then turned her fiercest glare on her third and fifth seats. "I'm not a captain," she growled. "First one of you that says I am's gonna have a blade in their chest. I can reach without jumping, now."

 

Ikkaku and Yumichika were both hesitant to reply. Their vice-captain had never threatened people, always choosing instead to be annoying until they couldn't stand it, or complaining to Kenpachi and letting him deal with the offending man. Finally, Yumichika spoke. "Vice-Captain..."

 

"Ken-chan's comin' back. It's gonna take him a while, 'cause he don't have me with him to point him the right way."

 

"How do you know?" Yumichika asked quietly.

 

She grinned brightly, arms at her sides, and it was just as adorable as when she'd done it when she'd been small. "Ken-chan likes the best fights, right? So eventually, he's gonna find his way back here!"

 

That was how the Eleventh Division was kicked back into their usual fighting spirit, spurred on by a (still relatively tiny) pink-haired woman who would beat them up if she thought they hadn't been doing enough fighting lately.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Ichigo, at this point the captain of the Fifth Division, asked Yachiru when he saw her, "Why'd you decide to grow up?"

"I don't have Ken-chan to climb on to reach the high places," she explained, then smiled brightly and slashed out at him with her katana, which had grown as she had. Ichigo let out an actual yelp and hopped backward. Hinamori, reinstated as vice-captain, leaped between them and began the incantation for a binding kidou, but Yachiru jumped over her, tapping her on the head with her foot as she went.

Ichigo didn't even have his sword out. He just pointed behind her, and Yachiru frowned and turned. Hinamori was on the ground, unconscious.

"Get used to your new body, squirt," he sighed. "And give me some warning next time, alright?"


	3. Chapter 3

Regardless of what was going on in her life or her division, Yachiru took all of her duties very seriously. Those duties were, of course, to have as much fun as possible with as many people as possible - one group of these people included the Shinigami Women's Association, which Yachiru was the president of.

"Meeting start!" Yachiru called out cheerfully, leaning forward on the podium. It tilted dangerously forward under her weight, but seemed to stay precariously balanced on the edge of its stand. "Vice-President Nana-chan, got anything to say?"

Nanao flipped open her large binder and adjusted her glasses. The overhead lights reflected off the lenses for just a moment, causing them to glint maliciously. "Photo Book sales have decreased by another fifteen percent since the last meeting. It's time to sell a different product."

"Bake sale!" Yachiru exclaimed, as she always did when the topic came up. "Bake sales are the best!"

Nemu raised a hand. "Do you not enjoy them so much because you eat all the pastries and then spend the profits on candy?"

"Duh!"

"You'll lose your new figure if you do that," Rangiku warned.

Yachiru scrunched up her face and held her hands up to her chest, cupping her very small breasts. "Sounds even better. I don't know how you run around fighting with stuff jiggling all over, Boobies."

"With that in mind," Nanao said hurriedly, "I thought we could create another photo book geared toward a male audience."

Rukia was suddenly grateful that she had chosen to attend the meeting instead of letting her brother take her place as he usually did. "I veto the motion!"

"Mmm?" Yachiru hummed. "Veto veto? How come, Washboard Chest?"

"I don't think my brother would-" Rukia began, before her brain focused all of its power on one thing - not being court martialed for strangling a superior officer. "Washboard Chest?"

"Yuh huh! I heard Tattoos callin' you that once."

Rukia stood suddenly, her chair flying back into the wall and denting it from the force of the motion. Nanao made a note in her book to have the repair costs taken from the Men's Association's already meager budget. "If you'll excuse me, President Kusajishi," Rukia said, bowing formally, "I have to go kill Renji."

"Have fun!" Yachiru called out, waving wildly. The podium lurched forward, then back again. "So we're just takin' photos of ourselves?"

"I can provide the skimpy outfits!" Rangiku cheered.

"We have to make me look good!" Isane said, looking flustered. When everyone, including her sister, stared at her, Isane flushed. "I mean- Captain Unohana will see it, so..."

"This is gonna be lots of fun!" Yachiru exclaimed. "I like dress-up!"

While the photo book turned out to be wildly popular among the male shinigami, not a single member of the eleventh division bought a copy. Anyone who wanted to show support for the group that their vice-captain led simply donated money to the Women's Association or took the direct route and just bought snacks for Yachiru.

Many people were distressed to find their copies vandalised shortly after buying them, and pristine first-editions became highly valued. No one was able to find out who was going around and tearing out pages sixty through sixty-six of the photobooks.

In the center of the eleventh division, when their vice-captain was elsewhere, Ikkaku and Yumichika solemnly burned every image of a scantily-clad Yachiru.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm bad at finishing things AND this is old, so it's very unlikely that I'll finish this. The original story idea ended with Zaraki being reborn into the human realm and dying again, then being found by Yachiru and instated as her vice-captain.


End file.
